ODE XX.
[What mad men are wee of the versing trade!]
1
What mad men are wee of the versing trade!
To give our witt
To Everie Censure! And, noe doubt,
A Thousand to the Common Eye has Strayed,
Ere one has hit;
And vs, the workmen, fooles, they flout.
2
An Epicke is too grave, a Satire Sharpe;
Sonnet is Light,
Elegie Dull; in Epigram
Wee want our Salt; and Ignorance will carpe,
Although we write
A Region beyond All they claime.
3
Yet Silly men are wee; and here I should
Desist from all
My Exercise of witt, if sure
I knew an able Iudge to read, that could
But Errors call,
Which Errors were; and know what's pure.
4
I durst not put my witt vnto the Test
Of such a Man;
I find a gvilt, with my owne Eyes,
A partiall Father; yet not soe possest
Of my owne braine
But I can see Deformities,
5
Perhaps a fault, where the good Reader huggs
My verie Name.
And let him Ioy in all he found;
Where I am proud of witt, perhaps he Shruggs;
And Sighes, 'tis Lame;
Soe 'twer, if I to him were bound.
6
But let me give Advice. Doe not pretend
To iudge of witt;
It is an Emmett in a Cloud;
And you have but dimme Eyes, my honest freind.
If wee Submitt,
Your Sence may make this Ant a Toade.
7
Then will I not sitt downe with this Rebuke;
But once againe
Ioy with the Muses; innocent
In my designe; adventuring to looke
In noe man's braine
For witt, beyond his Argument.
